The Paper Weight
I'm in charge of ordering office supplies for an organization. Recently the president asked me to order paper and a new drummer for the printer. I assumed these things were portable, as in one person could transport them, so when I got called that the items had arrived, I dropped by to pick them up, thinking I could just carry them out. Boy, was I wrong.
The drummer: No big deal. The paper: 48 pounds.
Which, okay, Mr. Macho over there, isn't too bad, but I didn't have a car, and this paper needed to make it two miles across town. Thus, I summoned my car.
The car didn't work out much better. I parked two blocks away because I wasn't going to pay for parking for a two-minute job, but that was underestimating the ordeal of carrying 48 pounds of paper plus a drummer. And I do lift weights, but MY GOSH, I could feel some sort of muscle separating from my hips as I hauled it to my car. And fork! I didn't have the crosswalk signal! It's 30 degrees (this was January), and I'm drenched.
Now, the delivery location happens to be beside a hospital aka there's no parking. Not even loading zones unless you have an emergency hernia. There is $5 valet parking, but if I couldn't pay a dollar for my two-minute job above, do you think I'm going to pay $5?
Knowing all this, I circled the block. I debated throwing the box out onto the sidewalk, then finding parking and coming back to lug the paper to its proper place. I then realized how that would look: Nondescript white car throws heavy box onto city sidewalk outside a hospital and drives away. No one is going to be suspicious or anything.
Ah, I see a construction zone. It says "NO TRAFFIC" (don't they all?), but I really wasn't about to carry that paper more than a block (and that was too far), so desperate times call for illegal measures. I pull in, put on my flashers, and begin to unload, but then I get nervous. So I assail a random passerby: "Hi, do you have a second? Well, a minute." (I'd like to give you the Gideon Bible.) I explain the situation, she agrees, and I drag this box into the building. Never have I hated paper more.
I return to my car when I hear it: A siren. An ambulance is coming up behind me. Shoot, shoot, shoot.
I speed away.
At the next stoplight, I notice my dashboard. An aside: I have fragile taillights aka the wiring is exposed in my trunk (don't ask questions). The dashboard now told me that my taillight was out: In my erratic braking to find a loading zone, I had sent that paper (!!!) hurtling into the exposed taillight and broken the bulb.